Blood dripped off the edge of the knife as Nathan Prasad stared in horror. That was his blood, outside of his body. He could feel more of it running in a warm trickle down the side of his cheek. The pain from the slash he'd just received began to grow. He looked up into Benton's leering and piglike features and knew that the knife was going to keep cutting him. His blood was going to keep flowing, he was going to die, and nobody knew to come rescue him...

Benton leaned closer. "Wake up, dude,"

Nathan started, and the nightmare blew apart. He was in his little cabin on board the Helen and Mackie was shaking his shoulder.

"I said wake up. You were yelling. I'm only a couple of meters away from you and the soundproofing isn't perfect, you know?"

Nathan felt his heart rate slow. "My apologies. It was just a bad dream."

Mackie sat on the edge of his bunk. "Barcelona?"

He nodded. "One of the curses of having a graybox. You remember everything perfectly, even those things you don't want to. It tends to make both dreams and nightmares more intense."

The young man ran one hand through his spiky blonde hair. "Are you gonna be okay? Or am I going to have to come back in here in an hour or so?"

He felt a guilty twinge. The rest of the crew needed their sleep as well. "I honestly can't say. Normally I don't partake in drugs, but I'm wondering if a sleeping pill would be in order."

"Nah, I got a better idea. Shove over."

"What?"

"Just do it. No funny business, I promise."

Nathan scooted himself to the rear edge of the bunk and Mackie lay down along the front. He grabbed Nathan's arm and draped it over himself as he maneuvered himself next to the analyst, acting as the little spoon.

"There," said Mackie in satisfaction. "Somebody to hold while you sleep. Better than two years of therapy and a sleeping pill. Actually, 'cause it's me it's worth more like six years of therapy."

It had all happened so fast, Nathan hadn't had time to tense up. But now he did. He didn't dare move, and he held his arm a good three inches over Mackie's torso.

Mackie chuckled. "I said no funny business, and I meant it." He tugged Nathan's arm against him and tucked it under his own. He turned back to glare at Nathan. "And that goes for you, too. I gotta reputation to maintain. I can't be jumping into bed with any old genius-analyst-spy that wanders along."

Nathan laughed, and finally relaxed. The warmth of someone else against him did feel nice, after all. He drifted off to sleep much faster than he would have thought possible. He had no more nightmares that evening.

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Camicia rolled one shoulder to get the ache out of it. She pointedly ignored the asari's knowing smile while she surfed through the galactic newsfeeds.

"How long?" asked Persephone. She set down her mug of tea and leaned forward, then propped her chin in her hands on the mess hall table.

She glowered up at the blue-skinned smartass. "Never you mind. I'm satisfied that he's rated for hand-to-hand in zero gee. That's all you need to know."

"Mmmm, I see."

There was a long silence in the Helen's mess.

Camicia couldn't stand it anymore. "It's not like you did any better, Little Miss I'm-A-Commando-But-Refuse-To-Admit-It."

Persephone gave a shrug. "Yes, that's true. He pinned me six times out of seven. But I also recall a certain person of the turian persuasion saying that true hand-to-hand mastery could only be determined without the aid of gravity." She gave an evil grin. "No pesky leverage to get in the way of pure skill, were somebody's exact words."

The pilot growled and didn't speak.

There was another long silence. Persephone kept leaning on her hands and gently smiling at her.

Finally Camicia put a hand to her head. "Fine, it took about thirty minutes of me tossing him around in zero gee before he caught on to the concepts. And after that I never laid a hand on him." She rolled her shoulder again.

Persephone, to her credit, didn't say anything else and leaned back. She picked up her tea and took a small sip.

"Spirits, he's fast," muttered Camicia.

"Yep."

"He only knows something like five moves but he can use them like nobody's business."

"I know."

There was a very long silence.

"Glad he's on our side. Spirits preserve us if he ever decides we're in his way."

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John thought that this bit of Sur'Kesh was what an Aztec city would have looked like if updated and modernized. The pyramidal buildings around him were set among lush jungle and looked as if they'd grown out of the ground ages ago in spite of their metal-and-glass construction. The window that looked out over the scene let in the golden glow of the afternoon sun. John glanced both ways along the corridor. Apart from Nathan and Mackie, there was no one else in sight.

"It's nice," he said aloud.

"It should be," replied Nathan. "This settlement has been here for about three thousand years. They've had a long time to get it just right."

"Ah." It was interesting that the city was so homogeneous in appearance when compared with a similarly ancient human city like Baghdad. The salarians must have bulldozed all of the older construction when putting up newer buildings. Or they had picked one style of architecture millennia ago and stuck with it.

Mackie leaned against the wall and gave a bored yawn. "So when are we meeting with this Gelban dude?"

"It should be-" John was interrupted as a salarian bustled around the corridor.

"So sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen," it chirped. "Please follow me."

The three humans all trouped after the shorter, willowy alien. He led them into a large circular office that had a sunken carpeted area in the middle. A skylight overhead bathed everything in a warm glow. And there was a lot to bathe.

There were many shelves set into the walls around the office, and they were filled with objects. John saw everything from crude stone implements to fine pottery to small statuettes.

The salarian that led them in stepped to one side. "Gentlemen, may I present Atum Gelban."

Gelban rose from his desk. He was short even for a salarian, and some long-ago accident had removed one of his horns. "Mr Hadlock and company, I presume?" His voice was deeper than John expected from such a small body. The salarian tycoon shook hands with them.

"Glad you could see us, Mr. Gelban," said Nathan. "My employer is in the market for artwork. Specifically, artwork of races other than human."

"It's a hobby of mine," said John.

Gelban gave him a little nod. "Artwork is a very general term, good sirs. Could you be more specific?"

"Paintings," replied Nathan. "We were interested to see what you had in your collection-"

"Ah," interrupted Gelban with a smile. "Sorry to be pedantic, but it's not my collection. Everything here is owned by the Gelban Cultural Preservation Trust, not by me. And if you're looking to buy...well, I couldn't sell any of it, even if I wanted to. I deliberately set it up that way."

"Understood," continued Nathan smoothly. "We're actually not interested in buying, but rather in research."

"There's a lot of salarian art analysis," added Mackie, "but not much done by the salarians themselves. You're one of the few we've found that have any interest."

Gelban shrugged. "It's not a common thing to run into with my people. As a rule, we don't have much interest in preserving or reflecting on our own past." He walked around the desk and over to a small statuette on one of the shelves. It was formed of black obsidian glass and was a weather-worn depiction of a sitting salarian with a swelled belly. It was so eroded that it almost looked like abstract art.

The tycoon picked it carefully off of the shelf. "See this? Felandra, one of the very first fertility goddesses in our mythology. This piece is at least twenty thousand years old. It's a miracle it survived this long." He gently set it back on the shelf. "I found it propping open a door in one of my servant's houses."

Mackie cleared his throat. "Well, even on Earth we have old things being discovered all the time."

Gelban smiled at him. "But when they're found, you at least have museums to put them in. On Sur'Kesh, not so much. If my servant had somehow discovered this piece's worth on his own, he'd have had nowhere to sell it except to some asari or turian collector. And then it would be gone from us." He sighed.

Nathan asked the question that John had been wondering. "So did the servant sell it to you?"

The salarian nodded. "Even after I told him what it was, he didn't truly realize its value. But I think he got a pretty good deal out of it. He's the owner of this building, after all."

John cleared his throat. "I at least want to know what I'm looking for when buying. So it would be very helpful if we could get a look at your collection."

Gelban looked sideways at him. "Well, your donation to the Trust was generous, well beyond that required for a standard tour. But let's be honest with each other. You want to see my whole collection, don't you? Including the Jou."

John shrugged in a sheepish manner, as if found out.

The tycoon looked at his assistant. "Have they been scanned?"

"Of course," replied the other salarian. "There's no weapons or anything else on them, not even an omni-tool."

"We understand it's an imposition," said Mackie with a charming smile. "But none of us have ever seen a painting by Jou in the flesh, so to speak."

Gelban tapped one digit next to his mouth, then appeared to come to a decision. "Certainly, let's go look at it. To be honest, I wish I could display it more openly. But the sheer value of any Jou painting makes it irresistible to criminal elements."

John smiled. "That's too bad."

----------------------------------------

They took a private elevator down into a corridor leading to a sparse white room. The walls of the corridor were lined with glass cases that held still more artifacts; paintings, antique weapons, even something that looked like the salarian version of plate armor. John was sure that they were being scanned and monitored in the minutest detail. But he was also sure that any recordings here were kept firmly under Gelban's possession. They should be able to talk more freely down here. Gelban led the way down the corridor. As John came into the room, the tycoon gestured with one sweeping hand at the far wall.

"Gentlemen, this is Memories of Sur'Kesh"

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

It was smaller than John had expected, barely two feet on a side. But the detail was incredible. It almost looked like a window out onto the city that John had just seen. As he drew closer, he began to feel oddly complacent. It was if he was looking at the place where he'd been born, and was finally coming home.

"Wow," said Mackie. "It's...really good."

Nathan said nothing, his eyes drinking up every brushstroke. John envied the analyst a little at this point; he would always be able to go back to this moment and recall it perfectly.

Gelban smiled. "It is remarkable how comforting the image makes you feel, isn't it?"

"It's a shame that you only have one Jou here," said Mackie. "Is this the only one on Sur'Kesh?"

"It is." Gelban suddenly stepped in front of the painting and faced them with a somber expression. "But somehow, I don't think you're here for that. I've met a lot of art collectors, and you don't seem the type."

Both Nathan and Mackie looked at John, who nodded to them. Mackie sighed and pulled a paper photo out of his pocket. "We're looking for this guy. Keiji Okuda."

Gelban studied the photo but didn't take it from Mackie's hand. "And what is this person to do with me?"

"He's a thief," said Mackie. "Steals stuff like this." He motioned towards the painting.

Gelban gave him a deadpan look. "And why would I know the whereabouts of an art thief? If anything, he'd be my mortal enemy."

"You also were very publicly trying to get Memories of Palaven back from Octanus Quinian." replied Nathan. "He kept rebuffing your offers. And then three years ago Palaven was stolen, most probably by Okuda."

Gelban's mouth set in a furious grimace. "If you're accusing me of-"

"We don't care," interrupted John. "We don't care if you hired a thief or mercenaries or a goddamn marching band. We're not police. We want Okuda. That's all we care about."

The tycoon's grimace softened slightly, and he turned away to regard the painting behind him. "And all I care about is the missing Jou. After the theft I made it known through...certain channels that I would pay anything for it, no questions asked. I came up empty." He looked back over his shoulder. "No, gentlemen, I did not hire Keiji Okuda to steal the painting."

Nathan stepped forward, his eyes fixated on the salarian's face. "That's the truth but not the whole truth. You know something else."

Gelban glared at Nathan.

The analyst smiled. "Did you hire somebody else to steal that painting?"

The salarian said nothing, and stared back with no expression.

Nathan nodded. "You did hire somebody else."

"I don't have to listen to this-"

"We. Don't. Care. If. You. Did." grated John. "If you did hire somebody else to steal the Jou, then that's somebody who could give us information about Okuda. Give us that contact, and we'll be out of here."

Mackie cleared his throat and put on another charming smile. "And besides, if we track down Okuda we just might be able to recover that painting for you."

Gelban turned back to fully face them. "All right. I don't trust you, exactly, but it's worth the risk to recover the last Jou. The person I hired...I don't know their actual name. She's referred to as 'The Ghost', but that might be a little bit of dramatic license on somebody's part. I tried to get in touch with her after the theft. There was no response and very definitely no painting. I'm sure that the channels I used to hire her originally are long obsolete. But certain other inquiries I made have turned up some other contact methods as well as her current location."

"You didn't try to make further contact?" asked Mackie.

The salarian shook his head. "In spite of what you may think, I don't normally deal with thieves. No, once was enough for me. I decided to offer a reward instead, but as I said that hasn't worked."

"We'll be grateful for anything you can tell us," said Nathan.

"Grateful," mused Gelban. He turned and traced one green finger against the wall next to Sur'Kesh. "Gentlemen, if you can get me Palaven to hang here, then I'll show you the true meaning of 'grateful'."

----------------------------------------

"Good afternoon, Mr. Leng. Forgive me for not getting up, my joints aren't what they used to be."

Kai Leng put on a pleasant smile for the old dingbat. "Of course, Mrs. Carmichael." He sat across the small table from her. This was a cafe that he'd staked out for three days, just to make sure there were no Organization moles on its staff. Right now the place was filled with a bustling midday lunch crowd.

Mrs. Carmichael looked around the sunlit interior with interest. "I don't think I've ever been here before. What do you recommend?"

Leng sat back. "The seafood chowder." So far he wasn't very impressed with the half-mythical figure of Mrs. Carmichael. She seemed like a doddering old aunt, leaning one hand on her cane even though she was seated.

The waiter came, and they ordered their food. Once the man had left, Leng leaned forward. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me."

"Having your boss make the request made us take notice."

He nodded. "He's a persuasive fellow. And I'm sorry about the restrictions."

"I have to admit, Jackson was not happy about the 'no bodyguards' request. So what can I do for a...a certain mythical hell-hound?"

Leng slid forward a picture of Winston. "This person claimed to be with your Organization. We've been trying to trace his true identity and whereabouts, but so far we've had no luck."

"You wish us to find him for you?"

"It's in your interest as well. After all, you can't have random people claiming to be in your Organization."

Mrs. Carmichael shrugged and suddenly looked bored with the conversation. "True, but that's an internal matter for us to attend to. And if your people can't find him, then what chance does a little group of crooks like ours have?"

"Are you refusing our request?"

"I'm saying there is no point to your request. If you can't find him, then he can't be found."

Leng felt his jaw clench. "Or maybe he really is one of your boys."

Her eyes narrowed. "If that was the case, Mister Leng, then we would happily perform all sorts of sham investigating to avoid raising your suspicions. And then we would tell you that, gee whiz, we can't find him either. I'm not going to waste my people's time trying to prove a negative."

He could feel his anger building more. "You think you're so damn smart, don't you? You've got all the angles worked out ten steps ahead of everybody else."

She gave a careless wave with her free hand. "I'm just an old woman. We get tired of doing pointless things."

Leng had been given specific instructions. If the Organization's representative wouldn't play ball with Cerberus, then he had to make an example out of her. Cerberus had to be feared, and there was no better way than a nice show of physical brutality. He gave the old woman his best sharklike grin, the one that unsettled everybody. "You know, if you're tired I could put you to sleep."

Mrs. Carmichael, on the other hand, looked very much settled in the face of his grin. "Don't threaten me, young man. You don't want to go down that road."

"Really? Because from where I sit, the best days of your 'little group' were long ago. You've been trading on your reputation ever since, and if you think that we're afraid of you-"

"I know you're not afraid of us," interrupted Mrs. Carmichael. "But that's because you're all too stupid to know better."

Leng didn't have any weapons on him, but he wouldn't need them to take care of this senile old broad. He tensed and prepared to launch himself-

There was a soft, rippling sound which rolled through the cafe. It was a fusillade of safeties being released, of weapons being readied. Leng was suddenly very aware that everybody in the cafe had a gun pointed at him. Everybody. The waitstaff, the diners, and then even the cook came through the kitchen doors with a shotgun leveled at him. Leng very carefully un-tensed and stared at the forest of muzzles that blankly stared back at him.

Mrs. Carmichael snorted. "Cerberus. You do like your mythology, don't you?" She stood without effort and stared impassively at him. "Then allow me to explain the situation in those terms. Your people may believe that you are as powerful as the Greek gods of old. But never forget that we are the Titans. And let me assure you that you do not want to incur a Titan's wrath."

She picked up her cane and slammed its head on the table, making him jump a little. "Now fuck off, you little shit."

----------------------------------------

Camicia pointed at the map that was overlaid on the cockpit's forward windows. "See, if this 'Ghost' person is on Illium then that's outside of Council space. It's in the Terminus systems."

"And?" John knew that there must be something he wasn't seeing.

"And, it's not patrolled by any navies. It's very dangerous to go through there. You've got pirates, slavers, who knows what running all over the place."

"The Wild Wild West." He idly wondered if he could buy a cowboy hat somewhere. "But we're dangerous too. And we've got at least some armaments on this ship, right?"

"We could probably do okay in a single ship-to-ship battle, yeah. But we could get really banged up in the process. And if we happen to get in another one right after that, well...it could be a problem."

"So we go faster."

"It's going to take about three months to get there, and two of those will be outside Council space. A lot can happen in two months."

He thought back to their conversation when they'd first toured the ship. "We need an engineer, in other words."

"At least. It would be better to also have a couple more hands on board for damage control."

"That definitely won't fly. We need to keep this all on the QT."

"On the what? Oh, quiet. You monkeys and your weird sayings." She shook her head. "But we are going to need an engineer."

"Hmm." John didn't want to just hire somebody at random, no matter how qualified. The Helen was far too small to keep secrets from anybody, so whoever they got would have to know about their mission. And that led to all sorts of complications.

He realized that he was overthinking it, and smiled. In old business parlance, he needed to 'outsource' the problem. "I'm an idiot. I gotta make a call to somebody"

"Who?"

"Hackett."

----------------------------------------

Gabriella Daniels kneaded her forehead and stared at the terminal screen. She was tired and pissed. Eight months ago she had lost one of her best friends to Alliance pig-headedness. Oh sure, it was technically because that friend had called Hackett a lot of unprintable things right to the admiral's face. But Marcus had been driven to it by the obstinate refusal of the brass to admit they were all in big, big trouble.

Gabby had offered to resign in protest, but Marcus had told her in no uncertain terms that he didn't want her career ruined as well. The last time she had seen the big lug, she had promised him that she'd keep fighting to get the truth out. And she had tried, she told herself. Really and truly tried,to the point where her own career hung by a thread. There were already whispers of possible disciplinary action or forced medical leave.

But she could only try so much before giving up. And now she sat dejected in her quarters on Arcturus Station with her letter of resignation floating before her on the terminal screen. All she needed to do was press one final button and her naval days would be over. She ran her hands through her short brown hair. Well, at least once she was out of the sevice she could let it grow long again.

"I'm sorry, Marcus," she said, and tapped the 'send' key. The letter blinked off as she sat back. It almost felt like she had jumped out of an airplane with an untrustworthy parachute, and now she wondered where she might land. Engineers were always in demand, she supposed. But where to go? Marcus had wound up in the Terminus systems, in Omega of all damn places. Getting there would be difficult to say the least. But it would be nice to see him again.

Her musing was cut short by a soft 'ping' from her terminal. She read the incoming message with increasing annoyance. Those bastards.

It took a little bit of calling around, but she finally found somebody to yell at. "What the hell is this outprocessing nonsense?"

The little image of the woman on the screen shrugged in a bored manner. "New regs. You gotta talk with a counselor before the resignation gets approved."

"Counselor? I said in my letter why I'm resigning. There's no talking that could make me change my mind."

"Hey, it's nothing to me. But if you want yer back pay, you gotta do it."

"Fine." She cut the contact and stormed out of her room. Then she realized she had forgotten where she needed to go and stormed right back in to reread the message. With the proper room location now in hand, she went looking for somebody else she could unload on. Oh, this was going to be so much fun. She wouldn't have to to give a fig about regulations or the impact her words would have on her performance reviews. Gabby was going to make Marcus look like a lightweight in the cussin' department once she was face to face with this so-called counselor.

Gabby found the room without too much trouble. She stood outside the door and took a deep breath. It was a pity the station's doors were all automatic. It would be much more satisfying to fling it open.

The room just had one small table in the middle with a chair on either side. The counselor stood with his back to the door and didn't turn around as she entered. She was surprised to see gray in his hair; she thought that this would be a job for the newbies. As the door slid shut behind her, the man turned around. Gabby froze when she saw his face.

"Engineer Daniels," said Admiral Hackett. "Thank you for stopping by."

Her hand was at her brow in a crisp salute before she had time to think. But now that she had saluted him, Gabby realized that she wasn't sure if she had to anymore.

Hackett gave her an equally crisp salute in return, then dropped his hand and held it out. She took it in a daze.

"On behalf of the Alliance, I'd like to thank you for your years of loyal service. Please, have a seat."

Gabby did so, although she was starting to feel a large target forming on her back. Hackett sat across from her with a pleasant smile on his face like they were meeting at a cafe for drinks. "I imagine that I'm the last person you want to see right now."

"Sir, I am sorry about how things ended with my friend. But I don't hold him leaving against you. And that's not why I'm leaving either. It's...it's personal."

Hackett very carefully set a small box on the table between them and pressed a button on its side. The air suddenly stilled, and it almost felt to Gabby like they had suddenly been squeezed into a phone booth, although the room appeared unchanged.

"We're in a damping field now," said Hackett. "No sound will get picked up by any listening devices that might be in here. There will be no record of this conversation."

Gabby knew the target on her back had just become the size of Arcturus Station. "Sir, I've resigned. If you don't want to accept it, that's fine. But if I'm staying in the navy then I'm staying an engineer. I don't want to get involved in any intelligence operations-"

"The Reapers are real." It was a simple matter-of-fact statement from the Admiral, like 'Puppies are cute' or 'Vacuum sucks.'

She sat in shock for a moment, then felt a furious stream of expletives slam their way up her throat. Gabby managed to put a lid on them before she repeated what Marcus had done just before his exit. "Why you...sir. If you believed that, why haven't you said anything? If you had, Marcus Donnelly might still be here!"

Hackett rubbed his forehead. "In spite of my rank and privileges, I'm still just one man. The Alliance has made its decision, and I have to abide by that. Even if it is suicidal. It's that or I get tossed out on my ear. And then nothing will get done. So I have to be discreet, as you and Mr. Donnelly should have been."

Gabby laced her fingers together on the table to keep herself from throttling the smug bastard. "Understood sir. Just tell me, are you approving my resignation or not? I'm not going to make any trouble for you if I go, I just...can't be here anymore."

The Admiral gave her a smile. "I approved your resignation before we met. But what are you planning to do now that you've left the service?"

She thought about spinning some yarn about settling down and becoming a farmer but then decided to just be honest with him. "I'm not sure. I was thinking of heading out to Omega to visit Marcus, but honestly that was as far as I had gotten."

"Would you like to help me? I have a need for someone I can trust but who isn't on the Alliance payroll."

"Does this 'help' involve doing something about the Reapers?"

"In a roundabout way. I can assure you that it is vital to the Alliance and to humanity. But be warned, it will most likely be dangerous."

Gabby gave him as withering a glare as she dared to. Newly civilian or not, she didn't want to make him too mad. "You know I was on the Perugia during the Battle of the Citadel. If I wanted safe, I would've become a farmer." She paused. "Yeah, I'm in. What do you need me for?"